"He has been training really well so far and he could be fit for this weekend, but for him to be able to play 90 minutes it would have to be Manchester City," added the Toffees boss, who believes Jagielka's extended break could actually turn out to be a blessing for England.

"If you want to be really selfish from the national team point of view you would rather your players played between 1500 and 2000 minutes. You don't want them playing over 3000 minutes.

"That's where the levels start to fatigue and they find seasons very long, so if you could choose you would choose that situation."